Both Sides 
of 
The Shield 
By Major 
ARCHIBALD W. BUTT, 
One of the Heroes of the 
Titanic and President 
Taft’s Military Aid. 
Cepyright, 1905, by J. B. Lippincott 
company. All rights reserved. 
SYNOPSIS 
Palmer, a Boston newspaper man, i@# 
Bent to Georgia to report social and indus- 
trial conditions in a series of letters to his 
paper. Colgnel Turpin, a southerner, 
thinks Palmer is a lawyer and has come 
@ foreclose the Turpin plantation’s mort- 
gage. 
Palmer undeceives him, and the colonel, 
thinking that Palme is a kinsman, in- 
wites him to be his guest at the Pines, 
Paimer meets Ellen and Bud Turpin and 
fe hoepitably received. 
¥fe becomes interested in Ellen and 
fearns that the Turpin home is in grave 
pert! through lack of funds. He wants to 
eenfess that he is not really a kinsman, 
Wet falia to do so. 
Squire Hawkins, an elderly man, ts 
ecurting Ellen. A y rty is planned in 
hioner of Palmer, wh writes his {mpres- 
sions of the place for >j9 naner. 
waten wears an old brocade gown at the 
party, and Palmer falls in love with her. 
Efien and her friends take him to the 
wishing stone. 
*"You are my queen tonight,’ Palmer 
tefis her, but she will not permit him to 
avow his love. He fears she intends mar- 
rying the squire to save the old home. 
Efien thinks Palmer has ridiculed her 
and her family in one of his newspaper 
articles and commands him to leave her 
and never return. 
Paimer secretly acquires the Turpin 
mortgage to protect the place for Ellen, 
then volunteers for service in the war 
against Spain. 
He becomes ill in camp, and Ellen for- 
gives and nurses him. They become rec- 
onciled, and there is a wedding in pros- 
pect. 
| [CONTINUED.] 
{ 
He then told me that it was Miss El- 
len who had urged him to go to the 
front and who had given him the 
strength to leave the Pines. From his 
colonel I learned afterward that he 
had enlisted as a private, but was soon 
given a commission for an excellent 
record, and he owed his present place 
to his ability to handle men and not 
to political influences. 
After that first meeting we saw each 
other daily, and when not on duty to- 
gether we would light our pipes and 
wander through the dusty and fever 
LETTE ER A ES 
stricken streets, smoke and talk of 
home, but never did we speak of Ellen, 
though she was constantly in my 
thoughts and I believe in her brother’s 
also. 
Disease had broken out in camp, and 
typhoid raged with deadly effect dur- 
ing that long, cruel summer. One even- 
ing I went to bed feverish and not feel- 
ing myself at all. The day had been 
one of horror in the camp, and dis- 
patches were flying between headquar- 
ters and the war department. The 
evening shades brought no relief to the 
tired soldiers. No one seemed to be 
asleep, and the men were stretched 
outside their dog tents. The ground 
was dry and hot, and the moon hung 
in the heavens like a great ball of fire. 
Just as the midnight hour was called 
I heard some one in the direction of 
the Kentucky regiment, that lay across 
the road from us, begin to whistle 
the “Old Kentucky Home.” The notes 
fell sweet and clear across the tented 
field. Before he had finished a bar 
some one took up the tune and whis- 
tled a second. One after another join- 
ed in the melody, and finally there 
was hardly a man in the regiment, so 
it seemed to me, who was not whis- 
tling. It died away as suddenly as it 
had been inspired, and I think the 
camp slept with sweeter rest for hay- 
ing heard the serenade. I fell into a 
fitful sleep and waked to partial con- 
Belousness only when reveille was 
sounded. 
I made an effort to rise, but fell back, 
too weak to move again. The surgeon 
came in shortly after that and took my 
temperature. It was with a sickening 
sense of humiliation that I heard him 
say that it was a bad case of fever. 
Before I could be moved Bud came in, 
and I learned afterward that he feared 
I would be taken down. I turned my 
eyes to him in mute appeal. He touch- 
éd my hand kindly, and I drew him 
near me. 
“Tf I should die, Bud, will you tell 
Miss Hllen that I have always loved 
her and that my last thoughts were of 
her?” I said in a half whisper. 
He pressed my hand for an answer 
and placed his other on my fevered 
temple. I heard him ask the doctor to 
let him have charge of this patient. 
“His life is dearer than my own,” he 
said. I saw the surgeon nod his head 
and heard him add that it would take 
great nursing to pull me through. 
It was the last thing I remember for 
many a day. I heard afterward how 
he nursed me; how he slept by my cot 
at night and sat by it all day. After- 
ward he told me that I talked only of 
the Pines in my delirium, and for the 
first time he had learned that it was I 
who had taken up the mortgage and 
reduced the interest. The day came 
when the surgeons despaired of my 
Iffe, and then it was that he tele- 
graphed his sister. I have that faded 
bit of paper on which he wrote the 
message framed and hanging over my 
NORTH SHORE BREEZE 
desk and underneath it her answer. 
“Tieutenant Palmer lying at point of 
death. Your name incessantly on his 
Mps. Don’t come if you think best, but 
ft might save his life,’”’ was what he 
sent. 
The answer was even shorter. It 
read simply, “Keep him alive until I 
reach there.” 
They told me that her nursing saved 
my life. One touch from her hand and 
my delirium would subside, and, though 
I lay unconscious for days, she took 
little rest, and when she would lie 
down it was Bud who would take her 
place at my side. 
One morning just after orders came 
for my regiment to start for Cuba my 
eyes opened to the world and my 
senses returned. Bud was by my side. 
I knew then that Miss Ellen had been 
there, for the influence of her presence 
was with me still. 
“Where is she?’ I asked. 
“Getting a little needed rest,” he an- 
swered. “The crisis was passed last 
night, and she knows you are saved to 
her.” 
The big, strong fellow could stand it 
no longer. He knelt by my bed and, 
holding my hand, buried his face in 
the covering. I knew that he was 
weeping for very joy for his sister. I 
turned over wearily and laid my hand 
on his head. 
“Bud,” I whispered, “has she for- 
given?” 
“Yes, Howard,” he said. “She has 
told you so herself many a time in the 
long watches of the night.” 
I lapsed into unconsciousness again, 
and when I awoke Miss Ellen was by 
my side. She it was who told me that 
my regiment was going and held my 
hand in sympathy, for she knew how 
it would hurt me to be left behind. 
She read me the president’s noble 
words of praise for the men who had 
answered to the call for troops and, 
drawing from her pocket a little slip 
of paper, read me what the executive 
had to say of those who had fallen ill 
with fever and who had served their 
country only in the camp. It was only 
a short message from our president in 
answer to an invitation to come to 
Chickamauga, but it cheered many a 
poor fellow who, as I, lay stricken 
with the fever and who was forced to 
see his comrades march away to duty 
at the front. It was the message just 
as it came, and as she read it her eyes 
filed with tears: 
Executive Mansion, Washington. 
Major General Commanding Camp Thom- 
as, Chickamauga: 
Replying to your invitation, I beg to 
say that it would give me great pleasure 
to show by a personal visit to Chicka- 
mauga park my high regard for the 40,000 
troops of your command who so patriot- 
ically responded to the call for volunteers 
and who have been for upward of two 
months making ready for any service and 
sacrifice the country might require. My 
duties, however, will not admit of absence 
from Washington at this time. The high- 
est tribute that can be paid to the soldier 
is to say that he performed his full duty. 
The field of duty is determined by his 
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